Back in the Cold War days I suspect that the old WWII posters along the lines of“loose lips sink ships” were used to help indoctrinate young military brats like myself. I was in the third grade when the first serious propaganda messages from the military to young military dependents happened to me. This post is about what I remember — and I was never alone during these message sessions — I have no idea if this practice was wide spread or if we were merely part of an experimental group to see if they could silence us as young as possible. This particular military indoctrination tactic that I remember was probably devised scare us kids so we will never reveal anything about what happens on a military base.

The message that I remember quite clearly was the we could get our fathers killed if we had “loose lips” about what our dad’s did when they were deployed overseas. Scaring the hell out of children with threats that if they “tell” anyone then our parents could die. Back when I was a kid we were taught that adults were to be respected and obeyed — period. Add to that culturally learned rule of total respect to adult — men in uniform delivering the message about we being in charge of the safety of our fathers.

There is no doubt that kids can pick up on what is happening — we know when our parents are upset or concerned or trying to hide something big from us. Some of us are more observant and sensitive than others.

I didn’t figure out the manipulation until the magazine US News and World Reports along with Nightline broke the news about 1989 that squadrons of US Air Force planes had been flying spy missions over Russia, China and North Korea for decades. In all those year I never ever mentioned to anyone that my dad flew planes over Communist Countries. The News article didn’t mention that the US Navy had squadrons flying the same missions. Typical of the CIA to duplicate data gathering. Now I can find information about my dad’s old Navy squadron on the Internet and some interesting history as well as the different planes used by the squadron.

By the fifth grade we military brats of the Navy squadrons figured out that the only ones who didn’t know about what our fathers were doing were the US taxpayers. The “enemy” certainly knew — because our dads returned from deployment about their cat and mouse games with the commies.

There is no doubt that kids can pick up on what is happening — we know when our parents are upset or concerned or trying to hide something big from us. Some of us are more observant and sensitive than others.

In the third grade at some point I was among a large group of school age military dependents and in this meeting we were told that we had to be very careful about what we said around strangers. WE would never know who the spy was so we were to consider any civilian as a potential spy. We could get our fathers killed if we accidentally let a spy hear us talk about what we might think our father’s did. The key here is — civilians are the enemy. In our minds — we military brats were not civilians — but we were civilians. It is hard to explain — but most other military brats from all branches of the military and from other countries I have talked to held the same belief as children– that we were not civilians, that we were drafted into the military at birth.

What I now know as an adult is that the only people who were in the dark about what our father’s were doing while deployed overseas was and is the American people. The rulers of the citizens in foreign countries where the US Navy and US Air Force made over flights — knew that the USG was spying. Of course this spying was going both ways — this is what foreign government do to each other. This spy business is as old as humans themselves and even other species spy on each other and “the enemy” species.

Now that more information about 0bama’s “Insider Threat” program is coming out — and the fact that the Peace Corps is one of the agencies where this training for adults is on going — the fact that I have clear memories of early indoctrination as a military brat should came as no surprise to anyone watching the way the USG (US Government) is spending billions of our tax dollars to: 1. spy an all of us, 2. catch anyone who might tell the world that the USG is spying on the whole world.

Also there is the footnote that Government employees are being trained to “profile” other employees. How absolutely absurd — people untrained with no background in psychology are going to be watching and waiting for anyone who might behave in a non typical way. As if there isn’t enough pressure on workers — everyone will now have to practice — “put on a happy face” — learn to smile and never ever let anyone close. The book stores are filled with popular psychology books — which are mostly filled with junk science. Every so often I pull a random pop psy book off the shelf and thumb through it — most are worthless. Back in the day when I got my degrees in Psychology and behavior science we had to take statistics and research methodology and we had to learn how to read and write journal articles. We were trained to be researchers. Now anyone can “profile” friends, neighbors and fellow workers/employees without knowing the full background of that individual.

obama feels the need to be unique as he widens the definition of spying, secrets and enemy. We the people are the enemy — and he doesn’t want us to question why the militarized corporations are so willing to assist in this massive spying. The data storage complex in Utah is huge. Again what is being collected? Well all the nude photos of passengers collected by the TSA have to be stored somewhere. Does anyone really believe the USG that the TSA doesn’t store the nude xray graphic data on passengers?

All of this is connected. Have us focus on the messenger rather than the fact that the USG is spying on everyone.

When a naive person said in the comments after an article about NSA and the UK data collection — that he has nothing to hide. A more mature fellow with the wisdom of age replied: “You wear pants, don’t you?” I love that response.